The Hindu : New Delhi News : Mars and Moon to play hide and seek

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Saturday, May 10, 2008
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New Delhi

Mars and Moon to play hide and seek

Madhur Tankha

NEW DELHI: To enable budding astronomers to view and understand the Lunar Occultation of Mars, a number of public sky-watch events will be conducted in the Capital this Saturday.

The celestial event in which the Moon comes between the Earth and Mars will be visible from across the country and some parts of South-East Asia on Saturday evening. However, suitable weather conditions will be an essential prerequisite to watch the spectacular celestial event. Cloudy weather can play a spoilsport to the much talked about celestial event.

Arrangements in Delhi

The Nehru Planetarium in New Delhi in association with the Amateur Astronomers’ Association is conducting a public sky-watch at its premises.

“As viewed from Delhi, the dark limb of the Moon will appear to cover Mars at 7-41 p.m. and at 8-44 p.m. Mars will re-appear from behind the bright limb of the Moon,” said Nehru Planetarium Director N. Rathnasree on Friday.

Stating that major activities would be organised across the Capital to view the interesting astronomical event, Dr. Rathnasree said if there is a thick cloud cover or a dust storm, it would not be possible to observe the event. “Visitors will be allowed to move into the planetarium sky theatre and participate in a workshop that will be using stars projected by Planetarium’s projector.”

A rare event

During the sky-watch, amateur astronomer Ajay Talwar will set up his eight-inch computerised tracking telescope which is projected directly on to a screen at this location. It would also provide a video feed for electronic media channels. In addition, interested people could also view the event directly through telescopes set up at the Planetarium.

Speaking about the unique astronomical phenomenon, Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators president C. B. Devgun said: “This rare astronomical event of the Mars hiding behind the Moon and after some time coming from behind is like watching a hide and seek game. In this case the object which is hidden is Mars and the other object which hides it is the Moon and we are the observers standing on earth seeing the event.”

Sky-watch at schools

Several schools in the city are conducting sky-watch for their children. Students of Birla Vidya Niketan, who are seasoned amateur astronomers, are setting up their telescopes in the school, for observing the occultation.

Non government organisation SPACE is conducting a public sky-watch at Janakpuri and also helping many of its students conduct an occultation sky-watch from their schools.

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